Federal Debt and Deficit

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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more news

Stumped.

Apr 25, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Fiscal Policy Discourse in the Presidential Campaign Is it discouraging or inconsequential that all of the three leading presidential candidates have been espousing inchoate fiscal policy from the stump, making claims sometimes divorced from reality, offering precious little to address the country's ailing fiscal condition?

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Federal Decisions Impact State Budgets

Apr 25, 2008 by Craig Jennings

There were a slew of articles today from around the country about the impact of federal budget cuts on local communities, particularly for local education programs (see below). These articles detail the impact of cuts on a wide variety of programs and constituencies, from summer school to youth vocational education, from a rape crisis hotline to arts and music classes, from school counseling to early-reading instruction.

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OMB Watch Statement on FY 2009 Budget

Apr 23, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

OMB Watch released a statement on April 22 on the FY 2009 budget resolution negotiations. The statement urges both House and Senate negotiators to uphold the fiscally responsible principles promised by Democrats when they took over the majority in 2006. A key aspect of the ongoing budget negotiations is whether to offset the $70 billion cost of a one-year fix to the creep of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The House version of the resolution offsets the costs while the Senate does not.

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Monthly Budget Review: March, 2008

Apr 8, 2008 by Craig Jennings

CBO estimates that the government incurred a deficit of $310 billion in the first half of 2008. The deficit last year at the same point in time was $258 billion. The $51 billion increase in the deficit through March was largely unaffected by differences in the timing of receipts or expenditures. A number of programs experienced double-digit percentage increases in spending in the first half of the year—including food and nutrition programs, unemployment benefits, veterans' health care, federal-aid highways, and community development block grants.

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Paulson's Hand Waving Underscores Social Security's Financial Fitness

Mar 26, 2008 by Craig Jennings

In a statement by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on the 2008 Social Security and Medicare Trust Fund Reports, the Secretary reaches deep to find big bad numbers to support his and the president's call for reform of the Social Security program.

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Social Security: It's Long-Term Outlook Is Still Just Peachy

Mar 25, 2008 by Craig Jennings

In fact, it's getting better. The Social Security Trustees Report for 2008 was released by the Social Security Administration today (it's quite the page-turner). Here are the key facts:

Social Security's "insolvency" date remains the same as last year - 2041. This is the year in which the program's payments will exceed its income.
The year in which program's payments will exceed tax revenues remains unchanged - 2017. This is the year that the trust fund will first be used to make payments to beneficiaries

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Baucus Continues Quest to Drive Up Deficits

Mar 19, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, reiterated yesterday that the one-year adjustment to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) from impacting millions of additional taxpayers this year will not be paid for - ensuring an additional $70 billion will be added to the deficit.

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Democrats Pass Budget in House & Senate

Mar 14, 2008 by Adam Hughes*

The House and Senate successfully passed their versions of the FY 2009 budget resolution yesterday. The House passed their spending outline on a mostly party-line vote 212 - 207 and the Senate passed their version early this morning 51 - 44 (roll call not available yet). Sixteen Democrats in the House opposed the budget along with all Republicans and in the Senate, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME) supported the budget, while Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) opposed it.

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Estate Tax Madness

Mar 13, 2008 by Craig Jennings

The Senate has officially gone over the the bad place. Three out of the first seven amendments to the FY 2009 budget resolution propose to make costly changes to the estate tax. While only one of them was adopted, unfortunately the breakdown of the votes showed less support for a rational, fiscally responsible reform to the estate tax. Here's a quick summary of the amendments:

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Senate Budget Committee Approves FY 2009 Budget Resolution

Mar 6, 2008 by Craig Jennings

Voting along party lines - 12-10 -, the Senate Budget Committee has approved its FY 2009 budget resolution. The $3.1 billion resolution includes a one-year, non-offset $62 billion AMT patch. And at $472 billion, its non-defense, domestic top line is 2.2% more than Bush's $462 billion proposal.

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